{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreifbofc2bmxdzszejc4bpubjw25xiawyvaszjw2efqvt5o2ap64xga",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:drhfnror6mux3y3rfothk73h/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlc42wvhyss2"
  },
  "coverImage": {
    "$type": "blob",
    "ref": {
      "$link": "bafkreic7iqnc2yfiu2efiguxr7l7eosfplp757jwsqr7ieap3idca5xr4i"
    },
    "mimeType": "image/png",
    "size": 407297
  },
  "path": "/articles/the-sixteen-steps-to-owning-an-eight-and-a-half-inch-skirt",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-07T12:01:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.mcsweeneys.net",
  "textContent": "**Step 1: The Problem**\nI’ve been reborn. My estrogen patch restored my sleep, energy, and hair back to age twenty-two. Time to reverse-age my wardrobe.\n\n**Step 2: The Store**\nPurdy Girl, a shop that mangles vowels and swaps consonants like a bra worn on the outside. The sales associate greets me, “Hey, girl. Don’t miss the sales rack.”\n\n**Step 3: The Find**\nAn eight-and-a-half-inch micro mini skirt that’s quadruple marked down to $29.99.\n\n**Step 4: The Research**\nUnlike a pair of 7.4-volt heated slippers with rechargeable batteries, a skirt isn’t complicated, so I skip the Amazon reviews.\n\n**Step 5: The Test**\n“You wanna try that on, girl?” The associate herds me to a mirror-less dressing room. I improvise by propping my phone on the floor in selfie mode. From this low angle, I look like a glamazon on stilts in a heinie hugger. I may have entered the dressing room as a woman, but I’m leaving it as a girl.\n\n**Step 6: Impulse Purchase**\nThe checkout area is like Paris Baguette. I’m offered a free pâtisserie. Seems counterintuitive to fitting into crop tops. I’m asked if I want to donate my jeans to save an extra 10 percent. I’m a goodwill girl. I give away my pants and leave in the micro.\n\n**Step 7: Buyer’s Rejoice**\nMy thighs have conquered a lot: a master’s degree, birth, high-waisted jeans, low-waisted jeans, mechanical bulls, the boot-scootin boogie, the Macarena, and wheelie chair races. Wearing a dollhouse curtain is the perfect way to celebrate them.\n\n**Step 8: The Fail**\nWalking home in my caboose coverlet, I’m startled by my reflection: a menopausal ogre with SUPA DUPA FUPA. I drop my mochi donut. A micro mini isn’t something I can bend over in without blasting passersby with my honey buns, so I stop, drop, and roll to the downed pastry.\n\n**Step 9: Buyer’s Remorse**\nWhat was I thinking, entering a store aimed at seventeen-year-olds with upcycled bralettes? Eight and a half inches is barely enough fabric to make a kimono for a Hallmark Precious Moments figurine.\n\n**Step 10: Purchase Reinforcement**\nI remind myself that my body is a collab between a divine being and a genomic sequence longer than a CVS receipt. It’s my right to wear a derriere doily.\n\n**Step 11: Purchase Disempowerment**\nI tell myself to shut the eff up. Why did I buy clothing the size of a disposable wipe?\n\n**Step 12: The Return**\nI’m frozen on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and Seventy-Eighth Street. Any movement could whip up a gale-force wind that may cause my baby bib to flutter and expose my badonkadonk.\n\n**Step 13: Purchase Support**\nInch by inch, I move until I reach the scene of the derriere debacle. I tell the sales associate, “I want to return the skirt.”\n\n“Sorry, girl, all sales are final.”\n\nI ask if I can just get my jeans back. She says my jeans have been allocated to Gloria, a woman in need. It’s only been fourteen minutes since I donated them.\n\n**Step 14: Purchase Augmentation**\nTo max-up my micro skirt, pettipants are suggested. Short ruffled bloomers inspired by undergarments from the 1800s. A time when propriety ruled fashion. Now, it’s ruled by insanity.\n\n**Step 15: Purchase Interference**\nBefore purchasing, the sales associate asks to see my ID. I show it. She says, “Sorry, girl. I can’t sell you the pettipants.” I ask her why not. She says for safety reasons, the store doesn’t sell pettipants to anyone over fifty. I tell her that’s ageist. She explains that when combined with hot flashes and dry vaginal walls, the pettipants may spark spontaneous combustion. I ask how I’m supposed to get home in a tooshie tunic. She says she’ll sell them to me, but she won’t take responsibility. She has me sign a waiver absolving her of any pettipants accidents.\n\n**Step 16: The Rear End**\nI leave Purdy Girl as a liability. I pause on the sidewalk to eat a mochi donut. Suddenly, I’m sideswiped. I hit cement. Another body follows. Buttocks up, I instantly recognize the jeans. “Gloria?”",
  "title": "The Sixteen Steps to Owning an Eight-and-a-Half-Inch Skirt"
}